for my dad,

Daddy,

been thinking about you all day from way across the big sea and i know you deserve more but here is a post just for you... since i cant afford envelopes or stamps. ha! (thanks for offering that interest free loan though, so appreciated) have you ever heard of that french proverb that claims "A father is a banker provided by nature." Grandma must have written that about you, way back in Montreal. I'm serious though, that really is a french proverb.


...<3
Working over here and being so acutely aware of the differences in the lives of these kids and the kids i taught back home, i realise a little more every day how lucky i was to first, have a childhood, and second, to have the magical one that i did.
you are why. so thank you.

thank you,


for playing 'horsey' with lyndsey and i when we were kids and and crawling around on your hands and knees until we were tired

for buying us Gump.

for ice cream cones after soccer games

for taking us on a trip every single year of my life that i can remember

for taking us to the 'ex' every year for like a decade

for 'kids week'

for coming to canmore to see my mountains

for letting me sit on your lap and steer the car sometimes in smiths falls

for teaching me not to litter

for asking if my clothes are from value village, and commenting on how 'different' i am

for letting me take your beer

for instilling pride within us

for accepting my tattoos after the shock of the first one

for buying us an 'emergency kit' for the car and packing a bag of granola bars to keep in the trunk, "just in case"

for not making me call you every night at eleven or upon arriving anywhere (everywhere) anymore

for showing us, rather than telling us, the importance of family

for letting me grow into exactly who i am..even though it may be different from you


for never holding me back, for always letting me flourish, even when it scared the f out of you


sometimes you told me how and i listened
sometimes you told me and i refused
often you let me watch and do it my way..
for that i am inexplicably, irrevocably thankful

happiest birthday to you. i, too, love you for exactly who you are.

But you can't give your heart to a wild thing; the more you do, the stronger they get. Until they're strong enough to run into the woods. Or fly into a tree. Then a taller tree. Then the sky. That's how you'll end up if you love a wild thing. You'll end up looking at the sky
-Truman Capote